October 1980 Issue

On the Cover

The Last Empire

The King Ranch saga: how one family conquered, tamed, loved, toiled on, and fought over a great piece of Texas.

Features


Little House on the Prairie

Robert E. Lee advised his friend Richard King to build his permanent home at the highest point on the surrounding prairie, a little rise on the banks of Santa Gertrudis Creek. The first building was a tiny adobe jacal built of mud and sticks. The one-story house that replaced it

A Family Affair

Richard King and his wife, Henrietta, founded the King Ranch. Their daughter Alice and her husband, Robert Kleberg—shown with their children in the turn-of-the-century photograph at the right—founded the family that sustained it. When Henrietta King died in 1925, the ranch’s 1.2 million acres were divided among her heirs.

A Lot of Bull

Bob Kleberg had a problem. Brahman cattle from India were tough enough to survive in the South Texas climate, but they were too tough to eat. And fat English cattle like Herefords and Shorthorns suffered the traditional fate of the English in the tropics: they degenerated into a stupor and

Feature

Dirty Money

The ingredients: a criminal with soiled cash, an ambitious banker, a savvy go-between. The result: an almighty mess for Houston’s Allied Bank.

Columns


Man-child

Leon Box is a retarded artist whose work underscores the beauty and absurdity of a world he has seen very little of.

Classical Music

A Fan’s Notes

Arnold Shoenberg is the century’s most maligned composer, but to know him is to love him.

Jazz

Prince Albert

Although Don Albert’s music was a mainstay of the forties, his obstinate stand against racism put him years ahead of his time.

Reporter


Reporter

The Second Wave

Where have all the boat people gone?; money makes UT go round; Dallas blacks lambaste the co ps; Texas lowriders get down.

Miscellany


State Secrets

The Price is Right

The days of 40-cent gas are back again; the Astros’ midlife crisis; the state budget is gone with the wind; Baytown’s all washed up.

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